Rocky Spencer

To y’all who don’t live in western Washington, you’ve probably never heard that name.

Rocky Spencer was a Wildlife Biologist with the Washington State Department of Fish and Wildlife. He was the first person to ever earn the title “Carnivore Specialist” because of his work the native Cougars and Bears. He’s the guy who was called if you were a homeowner who found a rather nasty beastie in your backyard. He’d tranq it and contain it and release it somewhere safer for both you and the beastie.

On September the 8th, Spencer was killed in a helicopter accident while relocating big-horn sheep from a ranch that didn’t want them about.

The Mom, whom I’m sure you all see commenting about, worked with Rocky Spencer in her job at the Dept. of Natural Resources. She also went to his memorial this last weekend. I wanted to get this posted up last week, but with the memorial and what she saw there, I’m thinking that being a bit late isn’t such a bad thing.

He worked quite often with our Foresters at the Dept. of Natural Resources and even though I’ve been retired for over ten years, I remember him as a genuinely kind, very quiet and extremely dedicated man.

Two of his visits to our office in Enumclaw come to mind and make me smile at the memories. Someone’s car had hit a cougar and on his way taking it to his office, he stopped to show us (and tell us about) this beautiful animal. Most of us remember the education we received that day. The second visit is more of an awwww experience. Working in the area one morning, a couple committed what most outdoorsman know not to do, and that was “rescue” a fawn they found in the woods. They saw Rocky in his Dept. of Fish and Wildlife rig and flagged him down and gave him the animal which he determined was probably a day or two old. Again, he stopped at the office – where all of us went gaga over this adorable animal. It actually pranced around our office, stopped at various desks for a pet and sniffed at the goodies most of us kept in our desks. I doubt that little cutie ever made it back to the wild. Most likely stayed in a sanctuary. But that was a day we all still remember.

So rather than remember the horrendous, tragic ending to Rocky Spencer’s life, I choose to think about and celebrate somebody who did very good works, brought smiles and did his best to make his corner of the world a little bit better place. He will be missed by many, many people.

At the memorial, more than 500 people packed the Wabash Presbyterian Church in Auburn to listen to people talk about Rocky.

Oh, and you may think you have balls and that you can shoot…

That’s Rocky in the orange vest, tranqing Roosevelt elk for relocation.